The complete duty of man: Or, a system of doctrinal and practical Christianity ... a new edition

Book Description

London: J. Buckland & G. Keith; and sold at Edinburgh by Ar. Constable, 1795. Contemporary treed sheep, rebacked with complementary speckled calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and raised bands ruled in gilt; corners and edges rubbed, sides scuffed, lower outer portion of back cover discolored. First preface page with rubber-stamped numeral, first and last text pages with institutional rubber-stamp in lower margins. Front fly-leaf, upper outer corner of title-page, and verso of title-page with inked ownership inscriptions as above. Four pages of contents bound in at back of volume. Pages age-toned, a few with light to moderate foxing; outer edge of title-page browned. A solid, in fact pleasant book.. 8vo (21.5 cm, 8.45"). xvi, 500 pp. (xvii–xx bound in between 498 & 499). Revised edition, "carefully corrected, and divided into fifty-two chapters, one for each Lord's Day in the year" according to the title-page. The Rev. Venn (1725–97), an acclaimed preacher, wrote the Complete Duty as a response to the Whole Duty of Man, a classic devotional work but one which many eighteenth-century evangelicals felt wanting in the doctrine of justifying faith. The Complete Duty was first published in 1763 and went through numerous editions; John Henry Overton calls it "deservedly one of the most popular of all the practical and devotional works of the Evangelical school." Uncommon: OCLC and ESTC locate only four U.S. institutional holdings of this edition, one of which has since been deaccessioned. Provenance: Old inked signatures of "John R. Brown," "Tho. Smith," and "Rev. Thos. Smith.

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